LOCAL COPS LEAVING IN DROVES

MASS-GRAVE PROBE, DRUG-NETWORK LINKS PROMPT LEGAL CRISIS

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico -- Underscoring a startling police crisis, at
least 500 state and local law enforcement officers have resigned, have
been fired or have not shown up for work since the discovery of a mass
grave holding 12 alleged victims of drug-trafficking disputes, U.S.
and Mexican officials say.

The exodus of officers, coupled with a purge of the state and
municipal police corps by state and federal officials, has created
what may be one of the worst local-police crises in recent Mexican
history, said the officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

At the state level, a representative of Chihuahua Gov. Patricio
Martinez dismissed reports of a police crisis, insisting that the
number of state police officers who have left the force is 75 -- and
that not all of the changes are tied to the mass-graves scandal.

The representative, Antonio Garcia, referred all questions regarding
police vacancies in Juarez to city officials. Calls to Juarez
municipal police officials were not returned.

In Juarez there are 150 pending resignations from the police force,
according to local figures. In the past six months, 200 officers have
left the force, U.S. and Mexican officials say.

The problem will probably get worse, analysts said. A recent
recruitment drive for new, honest Juarez police officers yielded 14
would-be cadets. Officials said that is not enough to reopen a police
academy closed since 2001.

"If you do not have recruits in the pipeline, the crisis grows and
the law enforcement situation spirals downward," said Carlos Humberto
Toledo, a crime and national security expert in Mexico City. "If the
numbers are true, and there is that much of a vacuum in the police in
Chihuahua, it would mark an unprecedented crisis.

"It also would show the incompetence at the state and local level.
You always have vacancies in police forces, but you always have people
ready to step in."

The near-collapse of local law enforcement in Chihuahua state and
Ciudad Juarez comes as local police face closer scrutiny from
international human rights organizations, local activists and Mexican
federal investigators.

In March, the Dallas Morning News reported that La Linea, a violent
gang of drug smugglers and Juarez and Chihuahua state police, is at
the center of a widening inquiry by Mexican federal authorities
investigating the deaths of women here dating back to 1993.

Saturday, Mexico's attorney general formally charged 11 people
believed to be members of the Juarez cartel, some of them forming part
of La Linea.

The crisis here can be tied to systemic corruption of local and state
police, U.S. and Mexican authorities say.